Fauci Makes Final White House Appearance as Press Secretary Shuts Down COVID Questions

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in Washington on Nov. 22, 2022. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

White House advisor Anthony Fauci made his final appearance in the White House briefing room before he steps down next month, which devolved into chaos as multiple reporters asked him questions in unison about the origins of COVID-19 and relevant investigations.

At one point, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre started scolding reporters who were asking questions at the same time.

“We have a process here, I’m not calling on people who yell, and you’re being disrespectful to your colleagues and you’re being disrespectful to our guests,” she told reporters in the briefing room. “I will not call on you if you yell, and also you’re taking time off the clock because Dr. Fauci has to leave in a couple of minutes.”

“You need to call people across the room! She has a valid question, she’s asked about the origin of COVID,” a reporter from Africa Today told Jean-Pierre.

Fauci answered only one of the questions, which was one about House Republicans taking the majority in Congress and possibly investigating him. Multiple GOP lawmakers have signaled they would call him to testify over the origins of the COVID-19 virus and his agency having provided funding to a third party to carry out controversial research in Wuhan, China.

The longtime federal official said that he has testified “hundreds of times” and would comply with Republicans if he is asked. Regarding questions about the origin of COVID-19, Fauci did not answer Tuesday.

Several months ago, Fauci announced he would step down as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in December. Fauci, 81, has been in charge of that agency since 1984.

“I’ll let other people judge the value or not of my accomplishments, but I would like people to remember about what I’ve done, is that every day for all of those years I’ve given it everything that I have and I’ve never left anything on the field,” Fauci said at the briefing.

In the briefing, Fauci again called on people to get an updated COVID-19 booster shot that has been recently pushed by the White House and pharmaceutical companies.

“Whether you’re a far-right Republican or a far-left Democrat, it doesn’t make any difference to me,” he later added. “I look upon it the same way as I did in the emergency room in middle New York City when I was taking care of everybody who was coming in off the street.”

Fauci has been targeted by GOP officials and conservatives for the often dire predictions he’s made about the trajectory of COVID-19 and for publicly backing COVID-19 shutdown orders, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates. Some, like Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, said that Fauci and other federal officials have attempted to create panic over the virus.

DeSantis in August told podcaster Dan Bongino that Fauci tried to “sow fear in the population and scared a lot of parents” when he called for schools to be shut down in favor of in-person learning. “We can never go down that road,” DeSantis said.

Starting in early 2020, Fauci has become essentially the public face of the federal government’s pandemic response, making hundreds of media appearances and giving numerous interviews.

In the statement announcing the move in July, Fauci stated he is “not retiring” and will work on “science and public health and to inspire and mentor the next generation of scientific leaders as they help prepare the world to face future infectious disease threats.”

Investigations

NIAID provided funds to EcoHealth Alliance, which conducted bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China before the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan. Chinese Communist Party officials have officially stated that the virus emerged at a wet market, but some U.S. intelligence officials believe it emerged at the Wuhan lab.

Workers are seen next to a cage with mice (R) inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, capital of China's Hubei Province, on Feb. 23, 2017. Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images

Republican lawmakers who have been investigating the lab-leak origin theory want to look further into whether NIAID or Fauci played a role in doling out funds to EcoHealth.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, also a Republican, and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry are expected to testify against Fauci as part of a lawsuit. In a lawsuit in May, the two officials alleged that Fauci’s agency and other federal officials colluded with social media firms to censor speech.

“During COVID, we know that high-ranking Facebook officials were text messaging the surgeon general of the United States saying, ‘Hey, we took that down, what more can we do?’ We also know that there was a special portal created for Big Tech with the government to take down people and have them de-platformed,” Schmitt told Fox News earlier this week about the suit.

Other than Fauci, they’ve attempted to depose former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Jen Easterly, and FBI officials. The Biden administration has appealed their lawsuit, although a judge on Nov. 2 rejected the government’s request.